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Their presence in Rashis on Parshat Nitzavim-Vayeylech Volume 13, Number 8 Rashi is Simple - Volume 36 Number 8 Used in the weekly Rashi-is-Simple and the Daily Rashi. Visit the RashiYomi website: http://www.Rashiyomi.com/ (c) RashiYomi Incorporated, Dr. Hendel, President, Sept 10th 2009 The goal of this Weekly Rashi Digest is to use the weekly Torah portion to expose students at all levels to the ten major methods of commentary used by Rashi. It is hoped that continual weekly exposure to these ten major methods will enable students of all levels to acquire a familiarity and facility with the major exegetical methods.
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Russell http://www.RashiYomi.com/
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Weekly Rashi will be published next week, Sep 17th and will then resume Oct 8th. Enjoy the joyous holidays. May all students of Rashi be inscribed for a good year filled with learning.
Verse Dt29-25 discussing the sin of early Jews to worship the sun and moon states and went and served other gods, and worshipped them, gods that they knew not, and that He had not alloted unto them; Rashi notes that the underlined words, allloted references verses Dt04-19 discussing the allotment of the sun and moons to the other nations. Hence the Rashi comment The sun and moon were alloted to the non-Jewish nations to temp them to serve idolatry(Dt04-19) but they were not alloted to the Jews (Dt29-25b)
Advanced Rashi: To fully appreciate Rashi's comment one must bring a contrastive explanation by Oonkelos, cited by Rashi. Oonkelos suggests that the subject of the sentence he did not allot to them is the idols not God! In other words The idols never alloted any gifts or territory to the non-Jews who observed them. They were worthless gods!!! Rashi however argues that the subject of the sentence is God: God did allot the sun and moon to temp the nations into idolatrously worshipping them; however God never alloted the sun and moon to the Jews to temp them to worship.
When Rashi uses the synonym method he does not explain the meaning of a word but rather the distinction between two similar words both of whose meanings we already know.
In our article Peshat and Derash: A New Intuitive and Logical Approach, which can be found on the world-wide-web at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/rashi.pdf we have advocated punchy translations of Biblical verses as a means of presenting Rashi comments. The following translation of verse Dt31-20a embeds the Rashi translation Niutz means impatient/anger. For when I shall have brought them into the land which I swore unto their fathers, flowing with milk and honey; and they shall have eaten their fill, and waxen fat; and turned unto other gods, and serve them, and they shall make me impatient and angry, and break My covenant; Advanced Rashi: We have not explained why we translated these various Hebrew terms as heated, impatient, cutting. There are two ways to justify this. One way is to study many verses and see that certain anger refers more to feeling and other anger refers more to action. Alternatively, one could use etymological methods (which would have to be justified). For example the Hebrew root Cheth-Resh-Hey means both anger and heat and hence could refer to the hot feelings when one initially becomes angry. Similarly (though it would take more than this newsletter to justify) the roots Nun-Aleph-Tzade and Caph-Ayin-Samech refer to Aleph-Tzade and Ayin-Samech or impatience and cutting, trampling respectively. (We have defended this method of etymology in other issues of this Weekly Rashi digest).
Today Hebrew grammar is well understood and there are many books on it. Rashi, however, lived before the age of grammar books. A major Rashi method is therefore the teaching of basic grammar. Many students belittle this aspect of Rashi. They erroneously think that because of modern methods we know more. However Rashi will frequently focus on rare grammatical points not covered in conventional textbooks.
Advanced Rashi: This is an exciting Rashi since in addition to the grammar Rashi also gives comments on cantillation. Of the 7800 Rashi's on Chumash there are only a handful which address the Biblical musical grammatical marks. Rashi shows how the gender of the word this influences the groupings this book of Torah vs. the book of this Torah. Rashi does not explain why the different genders and groupings are used in the two different passages. I have not been able to find a reason or commentary for this reason.
The table below presents an aligned extract of verses or verselets in Dt31-07, Dt31-23. Both verses/verselets discuss the leadership of Joshua. The alignment justifies the Rashi comment that: 1) If the generation is worthy Joshua will come with the leaders of that generation into Israel and they - Joshua and the leaders will lead them together. 2) If the generation is not worthy Joshua will properlylead them and steer them away from the path they are going on. This duality is emphasized by the alignment of the two verses which differ in their key verbs. The Hebrew words for come and lead differ in one letter - Tavoh, Tavih - emphasizing the above mentioned contrast.
The table below presents two contradictory verses. Both verses talk about congregating the nation The underlined words highlight the contradiction. One verse says blast the trumpets to gather the nation while the other verse says the nation was gathered, but no trumpet blasts were mentioned. Which is it? Are trumpet blasts used to gather the nation or not? Rashi simply resolves this using the 2 aspects method: The Trumpets were Moses' personal trumpets. 1) So Moses used the trumpets when he congregated the nation 2) But Joshua (and future leaders) did not congregate the nation in this way The exclusivity of trumpet blasts for Moses is indicated explicitly in Nu10-02 which states Make 2, personal, silver trumpets ....They are designated personally to you for congregating the nation and moving the camp.
Advanced Rashi: Rashi points out that Technically Moses was still alive, still exhorting the people and still in charge. But once he had appointed Joshua he stopped using the trumpets. Rashi further explains Moses' actions by pointing out that he was anticipating death as shown in the above citation. Rashi cites the verse Ec08-08 There is no reign on the day of death. I have added a further defense to Rashi's observation that Moses exclusively used the trumpets to congregate the nation: We never find other leaders such as Samuel using trumpets to congregate the nation (cf. 1S11-14, 1S12-01).
Certain Biblical paragraphs are stated in a Theme-Development form. In other words a broad general idea is stated first followed by the development of this broad general theme in specific details. The Theme-Detail form creates a unified paragraph and consequently the law only applies to the enumerated details but not to other cases. Today's example illustrates this as shown below.
As is our usual custom in this email list we have embedded the Rashi comments in the text by interpolating key connective words. We further clarify this compact summary as follows: The statement I am 120 ...I can't lead you is a general comment which could have many reasons - for example, poor health, other commitments, or a prohibition of leading. This general clause is further delimited and clarified by the detail clause which explicitly states that the reason why Moses can't lead has nothing to do with health or other commitments but rather because God explicitly prohibited him from leading. For this reason we have classified this Rashi comment as illustrative of the Rabbi Ishmael style rules since a general clause is delimited with a detailed explanation.
We have explained in our article Biblical Formatting located on the world wide web at http://www.Rashiyomi.com/biblicalformatting.pdf, that the Biblical Author indicated bullets by using repeating keywords. That is, if a modern author wanted to get a point across using bullets - a list of similar but contrastive items - then the Biblical Author would use repeating keywords. Today's verse illustrates this principle. Bullets whether indicated through modern notation or through the Biblical method of repeating keywords always indicate contrastive emphasis - that is, each bullet is presumed to be a distinct item contrasted to the other items on the list. Very often the bullets are also used to indicate that the entire list of exhaustive of some spectrum.
We ask the following database query: Find leaders who gave farewell exhortations before their death. The reader is encouraged to perform the query using a standard Biblical Konnkordance or search engine. This database query yields the list below. The list justifies the following Rashi inference: Several leaders gave farewell exhortations before their death and transition to a new leadership reminding the people of God's good to them and His punishments to those who transgress His will. The list below presents the results of the database query.
Verse Dt31-26b states Take this book of the law, and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of HaShem your G-d, that it may be there for a witness against thee. Rashi explains this verse with a numerically labelled diagram
ARK 15 handbreadths = 2.5 Cubits
' - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
' 9 | |
' | |
' | Two tablets(10 commandments) |
' 9 | 6 x 6 + 6 x 6 = 12 x 6 Sefer | 9 HANDBREADTHS = 1.5 cubits
Torah
' | 2 x 8 |
' | |
' 9 | |
' - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Verse Dt30-19 discussing Moses' adjuration to the Jews to observe the convenant states I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed; But Heaven and earth are inanimate. They can't be witnesses. Hence Rashi interprets this symbolically. Rashi's suggestion is simple: Heaven and earth follow the inanimate laws that govern them and as a consequence all is well with them. If only we humans could act similarly. Advanced Rashi: Rashi's first explanation poetically sees the heaven and earth as two witnesses who punish the accused if convicted (The heavens abstain from rain and the earth from produce). However heaven and earth have no cogitive ability or free will and hence cannot really act as witnesses. Rashi's second explanation correctly sees them as symbolic affirmations adjuring humans to follow their inanimate counterparts. We have therefore concentrated on Rashi's 2nd explanation. We close this year's Weekly Rashi series with a gem of a story from the founder of Chasiduth. The founder of Chasiduth, the Ba'al Shem Tov, that is, the Person with a Good name, as he is affectionately known, was, in his youth, as a sexton, one day, sweeping the synagogue floors. All of a sudden he burst into tears: This lowly broom has fulfilled its maximum potential in existence and has merited to clean synagogue floors, but I, a human created in the image of the Supreme being, have not fulfilled my maximum potential. Of course, the Ba'al Shem Tov was simply echoing the above Rashi that sees Heaven and Earth as inanimate paradigms fulfilling the will of their Creator and contrasting it with human behavior.
Conclusion
This week's parshah contains examples of all Rashi methods. Visit the RashiYomi website at http://www.Rashiyomi.com for further details and examples. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||